Welcome back to the new thing. Green my name is David Barn with me as always. My good friend Alex Prio. How are you doing Alex?
Doing well. How about you? Good. Is it the light in our good friend Greg McBrayer?
How are you Greg? Good to be here. Good to see you guys. The final day of the semester Alex.
Classes ended on Thursday. My classes ended on Wednesday. Today's Friday for the folks at home. For the folks at home Alex is not wearing pants.
But it's just that's why I knew the end of the semester had happened already and I was trying to understand why when we have a guest. Well it's a very good book. I'll say that. It is a good book.
Who's with us here today? I've been reading for quite a long time as men in our early 40s and the younger generation. Every generation comes to a queen at the doctor arm store after a while. But who's with us?
What's going on? Our guest today is Peter Ehringer of the James B. Duke professor of political science. He's out there for quite a few books.
The first book was on the Fido, The Death of Socrates in Life of Philosophy. You also co-authored a book with Thomas Pingle. Yeah. That was a reader for me in an undergraduate class.
Yeah. I mean, Thucydides kicks it off or something like this. Yeah. Yeah.
He also has a book on Sophocles Theban place. He's a graduate in political philosophy. That's from 2009. It's a fantastic book and a translation with Thomas Pingle of Theban place.
But most recently he's written two books on Homer or centered around Homer. In 2014 we have Homer on the gods and human virtue. And then most recently last year, Homer and the tradition of political philosophy encounters with Plato, Machiavellia, and Nietzsche which is a book we're here to discuss today. Thank you Peter for joining us.
Thank you. Wait, wait. Alex, Alex? You're going to hold it up?
No, but people won't see the video. Yeah, yeah. This is a part of the Cambridge University Press. Cambridge University Press, yes.
I guess we should just jump right into it, right? So it's an interesting, the title is provocative I think because when people, you know, Homer and the tradition of political philosophy, that's fair enough. But then Plato, Machiavellia, Nietzsche encounters Plato, Machiavellia, Nietzsche. And I think a good way to start is to look at how you frame the history of political philosophy using Homer, which is, I think, as the title counterintuitive but also refreshing for that reason.
You know, Strauss, which a lot of our listeners are and a lot of our guests, we tend to look at modernity as a deviation from the classics and, you know, borrowing that phrase from the collection of essays by Strauss, who's a kind of hope for a rebirth of classical political rationalism on some level or in some form. You instead frame the rationalism of Socrates and Plato as a kind of deviation from a more concealed manner of Homer and Machiavellia and to a lesser extent, Nietzsche, who's obviously a bit more open about the life of philosophy. And that's obviously very simplistic and reductive. Your analysis is more complex.
But I think it's a really interesting frame. And I think it'd be interesting for our listeners to hear something about it and how you arrived at it because it is pretty unique, I think. Yeah, for non-Strucy and listeners, everything in your book, title and subtitle makes sense except for, you know, what the hell's Homer's name doing there. Like, oh, of course, Homer in the political, you know, in the traditional political philosophy.
It's like that, but that can wash over. For most people, it's a, wait, wait, wait a second. What's going on? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, I mean, well, first of all, I mean, working on this book has certainly led me to rethink my whole understanding of the history of political philosophy. And, you know, I guess my hope is my book will invite others to do the same. I mean, in a general way, I think my approach to the book grew out of, you know, two things, I mean, basically my work before. I mean, first, I was my interest in Plato and especially the sort of Platonistic Plato, no, the Fido, which is not, which is often, you know, for example, Strauss didn't write on the Fido, you know, it's not focused on so much by a much of a recent platonic scholarship.
And then on the other hand, my interest in the classical poets. And more specifically, the, you know, my argument in the first book on Homer is that Homer is a philosophic poet. And so, I think that the fact that he's a philosopher, that his, that his skepticism regarding the gods, that his sort of critique of the moral and political life, presentation of it is somehow tragic points to the philosophic life. And, you know, the wisdom of the, of the contemplative singer, something like that.
And this is something, by the way, that Plato himself says about Homer. He identifies Homer as the general of the philosophers. And that is a sort of, of, of, of, of, of, of all philosophic schools, except for a parmeneities. Now, so the, the question I was led to was this.
If Homer is a philosophic poet, why does Plato, who is also a philosophic poet, attack him so sharply. And, and that led me to the issue that divides Homer and Plato most sharply, I think, and that is that Homer deliberately hides his philosophic life. And so, this is what I call the platonic revolution in human affairs. And so then, you know, in wondering how a defender of Homer might respond to Plato's critique of Homer's sort of reticence, I was led to consider Machiavelli and Nietzsche, both of whom, of course, criticized Plato, and both of whom in varying measures, I mean, Nietzsche, much more than Machiavelli, but in varying measures invoke Homer in their critique of a Plato.
So, so what this approach sort of led me to is to recognize, I think, that Machiavelli and Nietzsche have philosophic critiques of Plato's rhetoric, of Plato's education, you know, his Platonism, not only regarding its effect on politics, but also, and in some ways, above all, regarding its effect on philosophy. And so what I conclude is that all four thinkers provide an education for philosophy, now that they're all, they're all educators, they're all teachers, that, that they point their readers to the philosophic, and they're all, they're all teachers. That, that, that they point their readers to the philosophic life understood as above all a contemplative life, but that their educations differ in, you know, extremely important and interesting ways. Thanks, Peter.
I have a question and I'll try to segue into the second question on the show. So when you said, I mean, David's question sort of instantly helped us capture this, I'll just repeat it in a way. When we say that Homer is a philosopher or philosophic, what do you mean? What is he contemplating?
What's he thinking about? Because I mean, are we expanding and exploding the term philosopher such that it includes just anybody who thinks about stuff? Or is it more precise? Yeah.
That's an excellent question. No, and you know, I mean, that's obviously a very great danger. No, any thoughtful person is a philosopher, any thoughtful leader or whatever. Yeah.
No, so, so I think one simple way of understanding this, a kind of formulaic way, is if one understands philosophy as the discovery of nature. No, I mean, that Homer, the first appearance of nature in extant Greek literature is in Homer. And furthermore, it's not only, I argue, the appearance of that word in Book 10 of the Odyssey, but generally, there is the notion of nature understood very precisely as a limit to divine power and to divine comprehension. So that's sort of one thing that I think, in addition to the references by Plato, and there are also references by Montenia and Vico and others to the notion of Homer as a philosophic poet, a philosophic in the strict sense of the term.
There is this sort of substantive meaning to that. And the other two things which are related that I mentioned are his portrait of death. And you know, has this really in the ilead above all has this very sort of scientific character that human life is dependent on certain vital organs and when they are destroyed human life is destroyed. And then finally, you know, I make the suggestion with regard to the similes know that the similes, which are so famous, you know, in Homer, you know, offer not only a kind of rich account of his imagination of his ability to link things that seem totally different.
The pain of a warrior in battle and the pain of a woman and childbirth, but that they, but that they reflect what what seems to me, you know, can be accurately described as a real, synoptic view of nature, no of the world, and an ability to pinpoint, you know, how one would go about understanding the world in its in its sort of man's fold character so that examining, you know, certain qualities, what do they have in common and sort of proceeding from there. I mean, that's, you know, what they're so beautiful, the similes, but they're also just extremely thought-provoking. Yeah, let me read a couple lines where you spell this out nicely in chapter two, where you say, rather than creating connections between unconnected things, Homer similes points at a genuinely common properties of seemingly unconnected. And the points of recognizing and reflecting on those properties, meaning I think it's easy to pass over what you're saying here.
It's not that, oh, this is sort of like that. It's like, no, there's a common essence or nature here. There's a use of a letter. They point to the question of the natures of things, questions that might be posed in the manner of Socrates as what is questions, for example, what is pain, what is joy, what is light, what is fear, what is fury.
In these ways, they raised the question, what is the distinctive nature of human beings that distinguishes them from other beings, for example, from beasts and gods, which I, you know, I'd always found a similar enlightening with respect to the plot, because often they point to really subtly undetectable things in the plot. But I think you really do a good job of showing that, you know, because people will focus on the discovery of nature in the Odyssey, but it's really going on all along in the Iliad, that there's a kind of indication of nature or sort of common passions or something like that that can be analyzed and understood in their manifold appearances. Yeah, and I think the beauty and the Iliad, I mean, this is true in the Odyssey too, but the is that the gods can do so many things, but in some ways that highlights their limits, know that they can, they can turn themselves into animals, they can, you know, they can confuse human beings, but they can't, for example, turn human beings into immortal beings, and they can't turn themselves into mortal beings in such a way as to, you know, experience, have the learning experiences that we mortal beings have and that Homer points us to. Peter, I guess we have a run of shows, I don't want to, we don't have to answer this question now, but I'm the kinship between the three philosophers.
It's interesting that Homer is the creator of the gods, but also read, read with our store for one side, you see how he undercuts the gods, right, just like the tragedy ends which you spell so nice in your books and Machiavelli is done. And Machiavelli is just something similar he creates and then he subtly destroys, he needs to doing something else but also he takes up a similar theme, you see these, it's no accident that these three men were the kinships between the thinkers. But you see, this isn't worth responding to now we can do a layer. No, that's a very interesting formulation I hadn't thought of that because obviously, you know, in some ways the greatest example of what you say is is Plato, you know, who would wait, you know, Plato, you know, Plato, but also, you know, raises very great questions about about Platonism, about the doctrines that constitute that.
So yeah, I mean, I guess, you know, that's a very interesting point David I mean I that there is, there is, I mean, they're, they all, you know, in thinking about, you know, which is one of the questions that you all have raised and that I touch on, you know, the relation between the philosophic life and the political life. I mean, all four are in a way both right because writing is obviously a political act and they're all great writers or with Homer whatever composers of things so, you know, a powerful account so I think, yeah, in that respect, maybe that's one aspect of their education of that education, partly is to create an edifice that grabs us and that and that provokes us but then, you know, helps us to move, you know, to sort of deeper layers and beyond, you know, the first, that first edifice of a framework of thinking about things. I was thinking there's sort of three founders, the founder of classical thought the founder of early modern and the founder of late majority or something like that and so they are these founders in this poetic sense I don't know if that makes sense but I was going to shift gears for a moment but you can feel free to have a lot of you like but just, I was understanding that idea that Homer is sort of the discover of nature as you mentioned and I was wondering if you could connect that to his role as a sort of philosophical teacher at all so he's trying to teach us about these limits these natural limits in some way and I know that Plato later will critique the way that he's teaching this so how is one we're teaching others to be philosophic. Yeah, I mean, you know, in terms of, I mean, I hesitate to say discover just because, no, because we don't know what came before Homer, no, I mean that's, I mean he's sort of like the pyramids, no, he just appears, you know, and one of the fascinating things about Nietzsche is he gives a kind of suggestion that Homer, you know, which seems plausible to me that he reforms the gods, the idea pre-existing but again yeah I mean was there a tradition before him was there a philosophic tradition before him I mean but but but in defense of the idea of him as being the first I mean you know Plato Herodotus I mean all these people do point Homer in particular.
Yeah, in terms of my account of how Homer teaches, I guess I thought there is one passage perhaps if I could read that gives a kind of general, a somewhat general overview and then I can explain this a little more specifically. On page 131, I just have in the second paragraph I say, Homer's education of his audience promotes a broadly enlightened skepticism toward the gods, a broadly humanistic focus on human virtue as exhibited by beautiful political leaders and a broadly tragic understanding of the uncertain relation between virtue and happiness. By focusing his presentation on the gods and on the heroes, all of whom are actively political, he provides his audience with food for thought with material to ponder and grapple with the religious and moral questions that naturally emerge out of the political life. In this way, Homer points the more thoughtful members of his audience beyond the tragic outlook of his great but clearly flawed heroes and down the path of the philosophic life without explicitly presenting that life.
Rather than present the philosophic life as one that is directly imitable, he provides the audience with the problems and the questions that might lead it to discover that life for themselves. For justice thinking is an activity that one can only engage in for oneself, so the life genuinely devoted to thinking must be discovered and lived for oneself. Now that's somewhat that's kind of a summary account, a little more specific. I mean, I think it's I find it most helpful to think in terms of Achilles.
No, so Achilles is the hero of heroes. No, he's the most virtuous of the Achaeans. I mean, everyone acknowledges that including Odysseus, he's the greatest warrior and he's the greatest friend. But Achilles is a manifestly flawed character, the most criticized character in the Iliad, a character who criticizes himself.
And he is, I argue, the unhappiest character. I mean, he is, for example, the one who weeps the most in the poem. So, so that's sort of a puzzle that Homer presents us with. Now, the happiest that Achilles ever is in the Iliad, the happiest he's ever presented as being and the happiest anyone in the Iliad is presented as being, is when he is singing.
When he is singing of the glories of men and he offers his most important thoughts. He raises the most searching questions about the life of virtue that he has led immediately after his singing when conversing with his dearest friends. So, so I argue that it's in this way that the Iliad points sort of beyond the dutiful virtuous, but tragic hero Achilles to the happiness and the wisdom of the singer of the philosophic singer Homer himself. So that's sort of one way when can trace that, that sort of line.
Yeah, you put it very good. You put it really well in the beginning, the first section of, of chapter two, you know, you point out recently enough the Iliad seems to present Achilles as a model to be imitated, but then you ask well what does it actually mean to imitate Achilles. You have a really nice statement on page 878 you say Homer centers his education and human excellence on a complex model of human excellence, a great, but evidently and admittedly flawed and sorrowful model of human excellence, a human being who questions the life that he leads and hence a model who points beyond himself to imitate Achilles is to imitate a tragic whose greatness flaws and sorrows upon reflection lead one to consider another less visible, but superior model of human excellence that of the contemplative and humane composer about the Iliad and the Odyssey Homer himself. I thought I was so nicely and succinctly, but now that's sort of the Homeric education right you start by him and killing Achilles you realize in book nine, especially when he's talking to Odysseus and Phoenix and Nestor that there's a kind of dialogue about the goodness of the life of virtue.
And so, you know, it really seems to fall away from this, you know, to considerable extent and embraces that life but there's this moment of clarity. In your chapter on Plato, however, you present Plato is arguing that no, the sort of imitation of these passions and the question and facing a fear of death and really facing a head on on Plato's account ultimately ends up having a sort of deleterious effect on human and therefore he presents an education a more ideal you could say, more political education books two and three in the Republic, which tries paradoxically and I think it would be good to explore this paradox a little bit, but paradoxically makes you more reasonable by making you less aware of the death entails right so maybe you could lay out this disagreement about human nature or what's going on there. Yeah, I mean one thing just generally about the disagreement is that, you know, in a certain sense one might say, I mean, this is, I don't say this in the book but it's just a thought that occurs to me in talking to you guys that Plato kind of raises the bar on what a successful education would be because arguably, right? I mean, the education of Homer produces not only extremely passionate Greeks with their self-destructive passions, but it also produces Plato and Socrates and the poets, you know, in Thucydides.
No, so that is a kind of, you know, I do think that is something that keep in mind. I mean, both Plato and Socrates clearly are critics of Homer, but as the dialogues also show, Homer is referred to more than anyone else than the dialogues besides Socrates, so that there is a kind of way in which Socrates and Plato are also products of the Homeric education. But yeah, I mean, my argument is that there is this sort of substantive disagreement and yeah, maybe I could read a couple passages and then, yeah, so on page 159, I just have this account of how Socrates challenges the sort of Homeric education, and he says this at the bottom of page 159 here again, Socrates points to a fundamental theoretical disagreement with Homer, a disagreement over the relative strength of human reason. Just as Homer believes that humans as a whole can grasp with their minds the gulf that separates the immortal gods from mortal humans and thereby free themselves from the hope that the carefree gods will care for them.
So does he believe that humans as a whole can recognize the evil of death without being enslaved to the fear of death. But Socrates contends human reason is weak. It is vulnerable to the passions, perhaps especially to the fear of death that always threatens, threatened to overwhelm and enslave it. Therefore, in order for reason to prevail in its struggle with the always potentially enslaving passions, reason is in need of lies, a bodyguard of lies that from childhood on protect reason from the passions by calming the passions.
And just one other point on page 169, I guess here I sort of present the Homeric possible response to this. This is 169 in the middle of the second paragraph. The example of Achilles suggests that it is only by plumbing the depths of that experience of grief, of facing and feeling in one's bones, the ills of our mortality, exhausting one's feelings of grief, recognizing sympathetically the similar sufferings of one's fellow mortals, and finally reflecting that the immortal gods cannot feel or comprehend or remedy such ills that one can come to achieve genuine resignation in the face of mortality. One must learn such resignation through experience, and in some sense through one's passions rather than simply through one's reason.
And even though Achilles does not achieve a complete resignation, his example suggests that it is by following his path that one can achieve the complete resignation of Homer. Now, so I guess, I mean, the simple way of putting it, a simpler way of putting it is that the Homeric education is one that somehow goes through the passions. No, his greatest and most thoughtful hero is his most passionate hero, and his poems encourage his audience first to sympathize with those passions, but then to somehow move beyond them. Whereas the platonic education, I argue, is much more austere, and I suggest that it attempts to calm the passions by presenting reassuring doctrines most notably on immortality and the forms as though they were unquestionable, even though they are questionable, and even though as Plato himself indicates they must ultimately be questioned.
So that's sort of the, and I think you're right, I mean, I do think that is a substantive disagreement about the passions, about the relation between the passions and reason. I have one small follow up here, and I think you lay out Plato's critique or Socrates's critique, I guess, of Homer. Part of it seems to be that Homer's portrayal of Achilles was too successful or too attractive of a model, which is persuasive to me. And so he's not sufficiently pointing us away from him, and so too many Greeks are getting stopped at the Achilles line, and that is the model for them.
And then I'll just, and then of course, I don't think how would Homer defend himself, and I'm wondering if maybe that's only as far as he could go. I'm not trying to historicize him, but the first one who's really thinking and trying to make the philosophic or the contemplative life appealing to people, is not appealing in any obvious way to folks. And so you sort of need an Achilles character to sort of make him attractive. I don't know.
I guess I went back and forth on my question. There's no doubt that. No, no, I think that's a good point. I mean, to some extent, one may wonder whether there isn't a limit to any rhetoric, no, to any education.
No, I mean, again, maybe this is too simple minded, but as you say, you know, I mean, the danger of having of the Homeric education is that one gets stuck at Achilles. One gets stuck. The passions are powerful. The passions of pity, of self-pity are potentially addictive.
I think Plato argues, you know, plausibly. But I guess the flip side of that is what is the price of the alternative, though, to what extent is the price of presenting, you know, the reassuring doctrines of Platonism, the calming sort of sedative of Platonism, and in a way, the poetic core of Platonism is the open celebration of the philosopher Socrates, is the potential downside of that. Yeah, a kind of dogmatism and that you get a kind of a political character. Yeah.
So, I mean, I think that is, no, and it's a very interesting question. And to some extent, one might even wonder about that as in teaching. No, I mean, just perhaps these are questions that any teacher wrestles with is how, you know, to what extent, you know, does one try to shake students up? To what extent does one try to guide them in a calm way, you know, and encourage them to see to come to certain conclusions in a kind of calm and dispassionate manner.
Yeah, I mean, I think those are important questions. I agree. Maybe as a way to segue to Machiavelli because that famous ancient reader Machiavelli was done as we all know. And so, Zenitha, I think, Gertik's Plato for presenting Socrates is too impressive of a model.
I mean, it's not very subtle and sedated, but in any event, that was my best attempt at a segue from Plato to Machiavelli by way of Zenitha. So, Alex, had a question you want to ask about your part of your book on Machiavelli? Well, I mean, it's a good transition because when he talks about who to imitate, Achilles comes up as a Cyrus and a points to the education of Cyrus, right? And one of the things I liked about your sort of discussion is it's not.
So Machiavelli, I'll just read something from 197. In teaching the best nature, those who for their infinite good parts deserve to be princes to regard those who excel in politics and wars the greatest and most virtuous human beings and to imitate them, Machiavelli rejects the platonic education that emphatically urges the best to admire, to imitate the contemplative apolitical philosophers' Socrates. In favor of the Homeric education that presents the warrior and leader Achilles as a visible model of human excellence. That's sort of how you start that chapter.
But by the time you get to the end of it, you point out that Machiavelli's discussion of imitation, the discourses, as well as in the prince points to the vital importance of wisdom and prudence in imitating the greatest, most virtuous, most wise, and prudent individuals, either by points to the limits of imitation. For again, if one must acquire wisdom and prudence in order to imitate models of human excellence, well, one must acquire wisdom and prudence apart from imitation. And in the last line, which I thought was such a nice way to end the chapter, to imitate Machiavelli and perhaps any philosopher is to seek out wisdom in loving and questioning conversation with philosophers past and present, but ultimately to follow one's path to wisdom on one's own and for oneself. So there's a sort of interesting mix of, in a way, it's a kind of implied critique of both Homer and Plato for relying on imitation, or maybe he's just more explicit about the need for imitation to be a sort of step on the way to this sort of philosophic education.
I don't know, maybe you want to enlarge on that, but I thought that was an interesting difference. Yeah, in some ways, for me, one of the many great surprises for me of working on this project was the kinship between Plato, between Machiavelli and Homer. You know, Machiavelli, you know, compared to Plato and Nietzsche hardly refers at all to, I mean, doesn't mention Homer's name, for example, and so forth, but I think there is this really profound kinship between them. And yeah, maybe if I could, there are a couple passages I think that that highlights on page 206 with the sort of kinship between Machiavelli and Homer.
Where Machiavelli stresses the importance of immersing oneself in political life and experiencing political life as the path to wisdom, as necessary to the path to wisdom. And so on page 206, I say, this is in the middle of the page, as Machiavelli emphasizes in his denocatory letter to the prince, his wisdom, his knowledge of the actions of great men has not only been acquired by a continuous reading of ancient books in his study, but also by a long experience of modern things. That is, by his own experience in the political life of his age. He therefore, by his own account, could not have acquired his wisdom without having lived the political life, the often dangerous political life that he did.
Accordingly, he refers to his wisdom as all that I have learned and understood in so many years and with so many hardships and dangers for myself. And you know, this is something I really try to emphasize. I mean, Machiavelli was a political man. I mean, he, you know, he was an important figure in Florence and he was tortured as a result of his service to the Republic.
And he talks about in a letter how he learned about himself, you know, he learned what he was capable of and what he was not capable of from that experience. It's quite gripping, actually. I think he learned how to torture his reader. His labyrinthine arguments from that, but sorry, go on.
Among other things. But yeah, but what I argue is that like Homer, Machiavelli ultimately points beyond the political life. And that this, I mean, you know, not exactly leaving it behind, but still, I mean, that there is a kind of priority given to the philosophic life. So I talk about this on 241, especially with regard to glory.
No, and so the sort of for a political life as he presents it is the love of glory. And ultimately, and he even dangles the hope for eternal glory. But this is the bottom page 241. I say Machiavelli argues here, therefore, on behalf of philosophers of lovers of wisdom and against lovers of glory that eternal glory is simply illusory.
Moreover, precisely and so far as in his account, glory is to be acquired through deception and force from gullible and self serving human beings. And Machiavelli demystifies the appeal of glory as a recognition and confirmation of one's excellence. In these ways, Machiavelli quietly indicates that it is unreasonable to devote one's life to glory. Accordingly, Machiavelli's own way of life as he indicates in his private letter to his friend, Vittori, on December 10th, 1513 seems to be devoted to a good he judges greater than honor to wisdom and to communion with those living and dead who are wise.
So that's sort of my kind of presentation of my account of Machiavelli's education, I guess. And then as Alex notes that Machiavelli rejects, he hides the political life in certain respects even more than Homer does, but that he does this for philosophic reasons. And that he indicates, among other things, this whole discussion of imitation, that it's important, but also it's great limitation. Just to follow up here, I agree, I think that Machiavelli points away from political life to the philosophical life, I'm persuaded.
But maybe these books work on multiple levels. And so one of the things, it does seem like Machiavelli, even if that's true, which I think it is, it seems like Machiavelli still had a very political goal in mind with his works. And so, okay, so you're nodding yesterday. So the question would be, so reading that back into Homer, if Homer's works are trying to have ultimately this philosophical project, does it secondarily have a political project like Machiavelli's?
I mean, Machiavelli is, I mean, he's no holds barred, right? I mean, he wants to usher in a whole new political world, even if that glory is ultimately empty. Yeah, no, I think that's a great question. I mean, with Homer, I mean, I would say the simplest political teaching of Homer is republicanism.
I mean, I think that you see that especially with regard to the Iliad. No, the Trojans who are presented with great sympathy and admiration are a monarchy. They're an absolute monarchy. And Priam and Hector, his son, are fundamentally unchallenged when they're challenged by Polydamus and by Aeneas, they lose.
No, and so, and T. Nor says, look, maybe we should give back Helen rather than destroy our city. I mean, Priam and Paris says, no, Priam sides with his son, whereas in the Aqians are not exactly a democratic republic, but they're clearly much more republican in the sense that Agamemnon flies to act in a very absolutist way at the beginning. But he slapped down everybody criticizes him, Agamemnon criticizes himself.
And just the relations, I mean, Agamemnon's brother, Menalaus, has no particular standing at all compared to Nestor, Achilles, Odysseus, Diomedes, and so forth. So I think, yeah, I think in that respect, perhaps there is a kind of kinship with Machiavelli, where Machiavelli describes so eloquently, you know, that in republics, there is more life, more hatred, more vengeance, more nature, more human nature in a way than in more tyrannical forms of government. Now, that's good, persuasive. So this tension between the practical political on the one hand and the philosophic on the other recurs also in Nietzsche, right, where you start, and you do this to a certain extent in each chapter, I really like this, where you kind of present this sort of doctrine of the first impression, and then you sort of slowly erode it with the details.
So in each of the form that stakes it, he's sort of world historical projects at his own parent project for a sort of sort of re-evaluation of the high use in sort of pan European philosophic rule or something like that. And then you point out that really what he means by the phrase beyond Good and Evil, what he means is that he's a great person. And so he's a great person. And so he's a great person.
And so he's a great person. And so he's a great person. And so he's a great person. And so he's a great person.
And so he's a great person. And so he's a great person. And so he's a great person. And so it's what he means by his critique of morality should apply to that, teaching itself so that there's a kind of on a deeper level of something else is going on.
You plan on the all higher cultures including the Homeric and add including Nietzsche's sort of culture, he's trying to cultivate, attempt to combine master and slavery Christianity. And then ultimately what we get is something like a more solitary, even hermit-like life, which restricts me. So a couple of things going on, how is this distinction recurve? And this is something that's drosobous, here's no friendship here.
There is Homer's suggest, Plato certainly suggests, and I'm not sure about Machiavelli, but in Nietzsche, it does feel very lonely at the end that Phil's talking about. So I don't know a couple of things going on there to come. Yeah. I mean, to address the last point first, I think in Nietzsche, there is, again, this perhaps with all of these thinkers, there is a solitary dimension to the philosopher outside the cave, for example, in Plato, in Nietzsche, the hermit, the great hermit of the mind, the royal and magnificent hermit of the mind.
But on the other hand, these thinkers are also, as writers, are affecting the world. I mean, hermit's no right. No, I mean, so in that respect, there is this sort of political dimension to them. I guess I argue to their education for philosophy.
And I do think, I mean, the one characterization that might evoke something like friendship in Nietzsche, I have to think about this somewhat more, is when he talks about we free minds, we free spirits. And when he talks about his writings as fish hooks, no, I interpret that to mean as right, that to appeal to kindred spirits, no to fellow, to fellow freemines, you know, whom he doesn't want as disciples, but he wants as a beautiful phrase of Zarathustra, you know, that a pupil repays his teacher poorly, if he only always remains a pupil, no? And that that, you know, that that that that is perhaps evoked by by Nietzsche. You have an interesting comment to that effect that if you get a bunch of free spirits together, they're going to be questioning each other, not going to be able to put this, then is, and this is, you know, the way in which Zarathustra is quasi-autobiographical, whereas Zarathustra is in search of friends and he gets nothing.
And he's sort of lonely. It's very tragic. And Nietzsche's life is to a certain extent, very tragic, because you sense that maybe he wants friends, but there's nobody around that's really on his level or even close to it. Yeah, maybe that's true.
I mean, I honestly don't know enough about, you know, some of his correspondents and Peter Gost and some of these other people, who follow me, I don't know. Doesn't Socrates even say he's never found a friend in the lysis? Yeah, never found a good friend. Good friend.
I'm still looking to just one of your folks at home. This is where little author goes. I, there's a set of writings, interviews with people who knew Nietzsche. So I forget exactly what it's called.
One of them describes a guy who goes up to Nietzsche's house and knocks on the door and he's confused because Nietzsche doesn't come but the lights are on and he looks in the window and he just sees Nietzsche frozen at his desk waiting for this person to be. Now, maybe that says more about that guy than about Nietzsche. I can help us feel like it says something about Nietzsche. That's what it means.
I don't know if there's a question in all this way. I mean, I did, I guess, you know, one of the things that I was very excited about in working on this with regard to Nietzsche is that I originally thought that I would conclude my hypothesis, you know, was that Nietzsche was a champion of Homer against Plato, you know, in a way for obvious reasons. I mean, Nietzsche says in, I think it's in genealogy of morality, you know, that the fun, the antagonism between Homer and Plato is the fundamental antagonism. But, but, but my argument is actually that while Nietzsche praises Homer, you know, or the sort of celebration of the passions, which he especially contrasts with the condemnation of so many of the passions in the Christian world.
And, and, and, and he, I think clearly includes the passion for wisdom in that celebration that Homer points to philosophy that Nietzsche criticizes Homer like Plato for not presenting the philosophic life openly, now so that Nietzsche, you know, regards the philosophic life, the life of contemplation that that as superior, you know, to the life of the moral founder and that therefore, you know, he does not seek a moral evaluation, a world transformation. And, and I guess, you know, my argument is that when Nietzsche, as you, as you indicated, Alex, would he pretends, for example, to seek the overthrow of democratic morality, that he does this not in order to achieve that, but in order to free our minds, you know, from our democratic prejudices that, that there he is acting like the bad conscience of his time, as he says Socrates did in aphorism to 12 of beyond good and evil. So, so that the critique of Plato is for going too far in hiding the radical skepticism of philosophy, not not in his presentation of philosophy, but in his in, in, in a kind of somewhat deceptive presentation of philosophy. There's a passage perhaps if I could read this, just to clarify this, where he says, this is at the bottom of page 301, I say, Nietzsche's critique of Plato then is not for being a genuine Platonist, but for adopting Platonism as a rhetorical strategy, the error of Plato is not primarily a theoretical one, but a rhetorical one.
Nietzsche suggests that the defect of Plato's strategy of redefining philosophy as a supporter of morality and religion, of fixing on philosophy, a moral and religious face or mask over its moral and religious septicism in order to inspire reverence for philosophy among humanity at large, as a champion of morality and piety, is that it has been all too successful. It has led to a complete misunderstanding of what philosophy itself is down to Nietzsche's time. So that's sort of, you know, my understanding that yeah, that Plato somehow goes too far. So, and so that that Nietzsche, so that Nietzsche agrees with Plato, that the philosopher should be presented openly as an object of admiration, but as a radical skeptic and not as a defender of morality and piety.
Now, so that's sort of my argument, I think the way I put it on in the introduction is that he doesn't seek to reverse the platonic revolution, but to kind of revise it. And that one way of thinking about Nietzsche's, I thought of this formulation recently, one way of thinking about Nietzsche's sort of over the top identification of himself as the anti-Christ, the amoralist, is that he is, that is sort of, he's the gadfly on steroids. Paul Branko in his book on Nietzsche says that Nietzsche's account of the philosopher as a commander and legislator is Plato's philosopher king on steroids. And I think, you know, conversely, I think, yeah, these sort of iconoclastic, you know, radical self-presentation of Nietzsche is sort of the gadfly on steroids.
So this is, I mean, we already talked about this a little bit, maybe we'll talk about it more, but Nietzsche presents himself as the Antichrist. I'm picking up a consistent theme, and it's something that I've thought myself that the philosopher as philosopher can't simply present himself as he is, for a variety of reasons, one of which I think is there would be an insufficiently small audience to even keep alive whatever he's up to. And so they all seem to be required to put on some kind of a front. And so Alex wrote a very good question in the Reverna show, as well I'll read it, but it's Alex's question, but I have two kind of questions here.
One is, so does the mask that the philosopher adopts, does it in any way reflect the kind of regime that he inhabits or the variety or hierarchy of regimes or something like this? I was already hinting this earlier with different historical circumstances, like maybe if Nietzsche had been alive in a different century, his mask would have been different or something like this. I like this notion that Plato was very intentionally presenting himself as a plate nest. And I guess and so Nietzsche criticized him for being too successful.
I wondered in my own head if Plato foresaw the possible emergence of monotheism and made his philosophy such that it could feed in or even be a positive contribution to that. Maybe with the decline of the city-state somehow being concomitant or gweebel with monotheism and an empire, the growth of an empire sort of demanding a singular god. I don't know if that's way too out there in bizarre, but no, I mean, it's a fascinating question. And obviously, Nietzsche raises this question.
I mean, to what extent, you know, I think what you're raising the question whether Plato anticipated this development, I think the question Nietzsche raises, which is not incompatible with your question, is to what extent does he contribute to that? To what extent does all of the tremendous prestige of platonic philosophy lend itself to the explosion of Christian universalism, you know, in particular. And you know, there's a, you know, the early Christians, I mean, they seize on the authority of Plato and, you know, the example of Socrates, the critique of the polytheism. And I think there's a letter of Nietzsche's where he identifies St.
Augustine, in particular, as the example he has in mind, when saying that Christianity is blatantism for the masses. So yeah, no, I think that is a real, that is a really interesting idea. The question about self-presentation of philosophy, I think of two formulations, one of Nietzsche and aphorism to 13 of Beyond Good and Evil, where he says that what a philosopher is cannot be taught, because it can only be known from experience. It can only be learned from experience.
And I think if I'm not mistaken, Strauss says something similar at one place where he says, wisdom cannot be said, it must be done. Something to that effect. And it seems to me that that is something that is very much in the spirit of Plato. No, I mean, but you never have a conversation between Socrates and Plato.
And even if we did have such a conversation, no, I mean, that that thinking is something that ultimately has to be done for oneself. And to the extent that the philosophy is, that's what philosophy is, that a writing can only lead us along a thought process that we ourselves can complete. I mean, this is a formulation I often have for my students when reading the platonic dialogues is that it seems so maddening because why doesn't Plato just share his thoughts? But that it's very hard to know how to share a thought.
If Plato said, if a teacher says human nature is acts, justice is why you can write it down, you can memorize it. But to know that thought, you have to think that thought for yourself. And one example, again, just a simple example, if you think of the Pythagorean theorem, now you can memorize it, but to know it, you have to work out the proofs for yourself. There's simply no alternative to that.
Yeah, it is this strange tendency, you know, in a way, it happens every time we speak, where you want to express a thought, you put into words, and the second you do that, you've robbed it of the life that made it. And I mean, I mean, I think there's a good occasion to point this out. I think as you know, this book is carefully argued, and it's got tons of evidence, but the footnotes, which are often longer than the text are a testament to the amount of work and care that goes into it, just sort of working through the text. I was telling a friend of mine, I was like, I feel like Peter wrote this using a lot of Excel spreadsheets, the long list of all the passage, you've clearly gone through it, thought about each instance, organized them, put them together, and there's this incredible work that goes into it, and it's on the page.
And you know, the rest of us are lucky enough to just take the reified results of that process. But this is a tendency, right? Even the word thought, the word philosophy, the word theory, it's these are words that mean activities, but have come to mean the result of that activities. And this is a sort of perennial problem of all is somehow to cultivate the activity out of the sort of ossified results, it's very difficult.
Yeah, there's a beautiful account of this at the last aphorism of Beyond Good and Evil, where Nietzsche, I think you were referring to that, you know, my written thoughts, I saw you in the morning, you know, when you were young and fresh, and now I see you in the afternoon, you know, it's, it's, yeah, I mean, it's true. I mean, in a way, thoughts, I mean, words are indispensable, obviously, for thinking, but in some sense, they're shortcuts, or that's the danger is they become kind of shortcuts, they become formulas, they become excuses for not thinking. I have one final one final question, it seems that in the deepest sense that your book really is about who and who is not a philosopher and what and what is not philosophy. And so how badly have we misunderstood and evaluated the who and who is not a philosopher question?
And what do we missed out on? Because it seems like man getting that wrong or overlooking that, some people are excluded who have very important things, what's the trajectory of the world changes. So if you had a thought or two on them. Yeah, I mean, that's a really great question.
And, and, you know, I mean, I suppose, I mean, how might one put this? I mean, in our lifetime, in our, in our education, we have been presented with figures who have not always been understood as philosophers, but who have been plausibly presented, for example, Xenophon, you know, as, as, as philosophic minds of the highest rank. And so I think that, you know, perhaps thinking, I mean, for me, thinking about the self presentation of the philosopher and that the present, the self presentation of the philosopher explicitly as a philosopher, as for example, Plato and Nietzsche do, you know, is a choice. And it's, it's a, it's a powerful choice.
And there's a case for it. But there's also an alternative way of introducing students, readers to philosophy. That is not so explicit. And, and there's a case for that too.
No, and, and you know, one thinks of Xenophon, one thinks of Thucydides, you know, of, you know, one may think of, you know, others, I mean, Hallavi, Maimonides, of the poets, Tacitus, absolutely. So no, I think, I think at least that's something to consider. And to, and to. We can get so awesome.
Right. We can also find in Pantheon, trickles down into the university. And, even we're still when one is on the job market, right? Of course, it's the flavor of it, of the time, but there's, I recall when I was a grad student, there are like acceptable people you can write on.
And then there are people that like, Hey, man, you want to write on Montaigne? That delights me as your, you know, the head of your dissertation committee, but like it's going to be hard to get a job. So, you know, right. No, absolutely.
But on the other hand, I mean, that is a very exciting, I think, I think that is an exciting feature of the times we are living in. No, because you think about times in which maybe these people were overlooked. And, and, you know, that that's, you know, that's sad. I mean, maybe there's some advantage to living in a time where all traditions are shaky.
No, and, but, but no, I mean, I think that is, that is a very much a question. Again, you know, as Greg says, one has to, it's a question. I mean, one can't one has to hesitate, you know, about any thoughtful person or favorite writer and so forth as being there, but therefore a philosopher. I mean, but, but on the other hand, I mean, it is just something it is, it is definitely something worth exploring.
Maybe this would be a good place to transition to your biography. I don't think it's to be. Oh, you had a transition, which is, you know, you mentioned that Nietzsche presents philosophy more skeptically than Plato. I think Plato would be critical because if you present philosophy to skeptical, you might get a Leopolden Loeb who were students at the University of Chicago where you got your PhD.
That's your transition. I did not know them. That was my one. I have an alibi.
I just want to make that clear. Where are you? How did you get interested in political philosophy? You always ask all our guests this.
When did it start and how did you make your way to where you are now? I mean, yeah, thank you for that question. I mean, I, you know, it's hard to say these things in retrospect and retrospect things can seem so straightforward. You know, I grew up in Washington, D.C.
So politics was somehow all around me. I grew up in a, in a family where, you know, books and literature and so forth were always very important. And I never really thought of connecting those two as interests until I discovered political philosophy. And yeah, I mean, the simplest answer, the clearest answer to this is Tom Hangle.
That's how I got interested in political philosophy. I had a high school teacher who encouraged me to focus on great books. And she was a wonderful teacher and Yondorf. And I learned many years later that her husband, Walter Yondorf, was a student of Leo Strauss.
I never knew that at the time, but I did learn that later. But you know, I went to college, I say that because I enrolled, I applied for and got into directed studies, which was this great books honors program at Yale. You know, so I think that was her influence to a large extent. She was a university Chicago person and was a kind of university Chicago type of class.
But I was headed for law school. And my goal, my thought is I major in philosophy or English and then go to law school. And I remember the first lecture, the inaugural lecture of directed studies, Pangle said, this course may change your life. It may mean that you won't, it may lead you not to go to law school.
And this was to a, whatever, 100 students or something like that. And I just thought, who is this guy? You know, I know, I just couldn't believe it. But that's really impressive.
And then, you know, I just felt, I mean, somehow, I was lucky enough to get a section and just, you know, from there on in, you know, he, you know, he, I just felt like my mind was on fire. You know, he just, you know, in terms of, you know, the, the, the texts, in terms of the questions. And he, you know, he had this capacity, which perhaps all of the, I've been, all of my teachers have had in one way or the other, of being very inspiring, but also in being very effective in imbuing with me gently but firmly a knowledge of my own ignorance that, you know, I, and he was extremely helpful in communicating that to me, you know, very early on. So yeah, I mean, he, I mean, I was very lucky at Yale and at Chicago.
I mean, at Yale, there was Tom Pangle, but there was also Chris Kelly and Randy Newell and Hillell Fradkin and Charles Fairbanks. And then at, and then at Chicago, of course, when I went there, there was Blue, who was, you know, just, you know, just a magnificent teacher, a wonderful teacher, you know, a wonderful friend to me. And, but there was also Nathan Tarkov, you know, who in some ways, I think, you know, instilled in me the importance of, you know, intellectual independence, you know, and the importance of, again, thinking about things on your own and for yourself ultimately. But I also had David Bulletin at Chicago and David Green and Ralph Lerner.
So I've really, it was just a tremendous good fortune. And, you know, I, you know, again, in retrospect, there is a kind of path, but it felt at the time, you know, and perhaps, you know, maybe in some ways, this is another way of thinking about it, just as a tremendous series of very fortunate events. It's true of so many of our guests just for, I'm sure you know this, but so many of us happen to it by accident, maybe a sort of natural inquisitiveness, but still it took a teacher to the class to get to the text. So it's such a wonderful, wonderful thing.
But do you want to let him around Gregor or should we call it? Yeah, sure. Let's do a couple of lighting around questions. We just got a couple silly questions now.
And we can cut this all out if you don't like it. But just we'll start easy. Who's your favorite philosopher? Yeah, yeah.
Yeah. I guess I would say Nietzsche as a philosopher, because he, I mean, he has this tremendous advantage of being able to talk about things like revealed religion and Christianity and so forth that I'm extremely interested in and that, you know, with the ancient, so my obviously love very much, they don't talk about those things. They can't. So but also there is a kind of clarity about evoking philosophic experiences that that, you know, is just is just very powerful.
So yeah, I mean, I'll say him. Okay, what about a favorite work of philosophy? There, I think I would say, I'd have to say the Republic. No, I mean, again, there are many things I could, you know, but the Republic partly because it's such a wonderful account of not only the images of the philosopher, the cave, but also the just the presentation of the philosopher in interaction with with young people.
No, it's just such a wonderful with Pauli Marcus and Vlaucon and Adi Amantus. It's just a wonderfully vivid account. Okay, very good. How about a favorite work of literature?
A favorite work of literature? I mean, a non philosophic or philosophic work of literature? We die here. Well, whatever you like, let's say non philosophic first.
I mean, all of those are philosophy. I know, I know, I mean, it's hard to say. I mean, I, you know, I mean, obviously, I love the Iliad. I love Homer.
Oh, modern. No, I love. I think so. Yeah.
All right. And this goes along with part of my my take on Homer, which is that some odds not only with many, many, many friends takes reaction to Homer, but obviously to Socrates and Nietzsche. I mean, again, I mean, I think part of it is that that Socrates and Nietzsche favor Odysseus as Odysseus is at his best. Right.
Or as Homer, I think, you know, my argument, I mean, I know you didn't ask this, but I'll inflict this on you, you know, is to compare book 24 of the Iliad with book 24 of the Odyssey, book 24 of the Iliad, you see Achilles transcending his anger, and questioning the gods, most of all, you know, it's it's temporary, but it's there, whereas book 24 of the Odyssey Odysseus is going conquer, so I'm going to be of anger and completely in the grip of trusting the gods unquestioningly. So yeah, so I guess the Iliad over the Odyssey. All right. And for modern literature, I love Jane Austen.
I think I've read Jane Austen more than any other novelist. So do you have a favorite work of hers? I've always loved persuasion. Okay.
It seems to have a certain melancholy to it that I find endearing, but it's not I mean, I also love, you know, Emma and Pride and Prejudice are so witty and funny. And you know, I love those as well. Very good. What was your first car?
I planned a Civic and it was a stick shift. Nice. And that's of some importance. I bought a stick shift because it was it was a 2003% cheaper stick shift than automatic, but I didn't know how to drive stick shift.
And so my friends, Richard Ruderman, Steve Kouts and David Yannowski spent hours and hours that's great in the summer of 1986, teaching me how to drive stick. So that's fun. That's my first part. They're a lot more fun than automatic.
I still have a Oh, yeah. I also just definitely. Very cool. What was your first job?
My first I was such a nerd. I always took classes and summers and stuff. So my first job was actually as Bloom's TA. I hear about that.
That's really something. Wow. Okay. What's the favorite place you've ever visited?
I feel like I might have. I mean, I guess I'd have to say Paris just because you know, I have so many wonderful memories in Paris and, you know, I was there with Bloom. I met my wife in Paris. You know, I just was always very, very happy there.
Okay. Last question. Least appreciated Homeric character. I think Nestor.
I mean, Nestor is often kind of lampooned as a kind of funny, but I mean, this was a least a surprise to me. I mean, it is Nestor who suggests wisely that the Kiyans erect a wall to defend their camp once Achilles is gone. He's the one who suggests the embassy to Achilles, even though it fails. He's the one who suggests the kind of night mission of Odysseus and I mean, but I think the most important thing is that it is Nestor who gets Patroclus to get Achilles to let him, Patroclus enter the war, save the Aqian army, and that eventually leads to Achilles because that's my, you know, Nestor gives this very long speech to Patroclus where he, he sort of inspires in him this ambition to be the light of the Aqians himself.
And then when Patroclus goes to Achilles, the really surprising thing is not that he begs Achilles to enter, but he says, and if you rather quickly, he says, and if you won't let me in, so I can be a light unto the, you know, the savior of the Aqians. And I think my interpretation is that Achilles lets him do that because he realizes that Patroclus has always wanted to step out of the shadow of Achilles and be the hero. And the Nestor senses that one other, one other indication, by the way, that of this high estimation of Nestor is in Alcibiades, when Alcibiades gives his speech in the symposium, he's talking about how incomparable Socrates is, you can't compare him to anybody. He goes through a list of a couple people that you can compare to others.
So he says you can compare brassidis to Achilles, and he says you can compare paracles to Nestor or Antinor. And I, you know, even though Alcibiades may have reservations about paracles, I think that is a contradiction of a certain, you know, shrewdness, our prudence that he attributes to. Yeah, for sure. Another minor character, I'll see what you think about this, who's speech is really, and he's very minor, who's really underappreciated, I think, is Phoenix in Book of Nine.
Oh, yeah, no, that's right. And, you know, he's situated between Odysseus and Ajax, and Odysseus sort of takes the reign, and then Ajax gives a very strange sort of book-rudging speech. But Phoenix really tries to work the parental angle, and there's also that interesting wordplay on Cleopatra slash Patroclus. Yes, yes.
And you wonder what he has in mind, everybody seems pretty savvy. Yeah, and I think, I mean, it's a very interesting indication of the limits of Odysseus. I mean, everybody is limited, but Odysseus, because Ajax and Phoenix had seen to agree that Phoenix would go first. And as you say, Odysseus goes first, and Odysseus really blows it, because, you know, by emphasizing the gifts to Achilles, in some ways, he makes it impossible for Achilles to accept it, right?
Because it would mean that he's different, actually what? And I think that that's also a sign of the shrewdness of Priam, that Priam, he brings gifts to Achilles, but he hardly mentions them, no? Because a man like Achilles, if he's not going to be bought, and he's never going to think of himself as being bought. That's also an error Hector makes when Hector, on his dying breath, says, you know, please, my parents will give you all this money if you return my body.
Blah, blah, blah. Yeah, I mean, I could talk about daily and all day with you, and I'd like to one day. But yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, we should have you back on the show and maybe do a couple of my books from the lady, even who knows.
But right now, it was a great time. I enjoyed talking about learning a lot from the book. The book is Homer and the tradition of Little Philosophy and Counted with Plato, Machiavelli, and Nietzsche, Cambridge University Press will tweet out a link to the book by on Amazon. Beautiful cover by that.
It's actually a beautiful book. Sometimes they're not so pretty. I mean, aesthetically, literally, I mean, actually, this is basically bound. It's nicely bound.
Yeah. Well said. I mean, nowadays it feels like publishers are on the cheap and you get like all sorts of wonky stuff in a book. This was nice.
Yeah. Yeah. Well, thanks again, and folks at home, don't forget to like, rate, and subscribe. And if you like Peter on the show, let us know.
We'll try to find him back.